Laboratory of Molecular Research for Solar Energy Innovations

Profile

Renata Solarska, PhD, DSc
e-mail: r.solarska@cent.uw.edu.pl
phone: +48 22 55 43711
room: 05.03
ORCID: 0000-0002-4811-1143
SCOPUS ID: 6506350778

Research interests of SOLEIL Group focus on design, synthesis & application of nanomaterials and advanced architectures for solar energy technologies and photo-driven biocatalytic applications. However, now, it starts to be obvious that with deep knowledge on synthesis and functionalization of metal oxide nano-architectures for solar energy conversion we can start to ask new questions about underlying understanding of elementary chemical reactions and photoelectrochemical processes and finally address them by new ultrafast spectroscopic and in-situ conceptual techniques allowing to directly investigate charge transfer kinetics phenomena We believe, that this conceptual approach to the molecular systems to identify the major bottlenecks hampering the efficiency of current solar systems has a bright future.

Research Topics:

• Investigation of the combined electro-photo-reduction of CO2 at selected catalysts taking in parallel, profit from the extra activation of the process provided by the plasmonic nanostructures
• Identification and recognition of the kinetic processes governing the performance of the earth abundant materials and their integrated systems with use of the ultrafast TAS approach (combined charge carrier dynamics & kinetic analysis)
• Identification & synthesis of radically new photoactive materials
• Design, construction & understanding of a sensing mechanism of the photoelectrochemical biosensors based on the polycrystalline semiconductors and demonstrate a proof of concept through the quantification of the biosensing activity and efficiency of the overall PEC sensor for a number of selected bioanalytes.

Leader

Renata Solarska is an associate professor at the University of Warsaw’s Centre of New Technologies. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Geneva in 2006 and has since been involved in various initiatives and research dedicated to nanostructured materials and their use for energy harvesting, conversion and environmental protection. She has almost 20 years of experience in electrochemistry followed by photoelectrochemistry and photophysics of semiconductors, metals and hybrid nanostructures. In addition to her research activities, she is also involved in the European Section of the Electrochemical Society as Chair, in order to promote activities in electrochemistry and solid-state science and to recognize the Society among scientists.

Team

Leader
Renata Solarska, PhD, DSc

Postdocs
Linh Trinh, PhD

PhD Students
Nabila Nawaz, MSc
Aleksandra Parzuch, MSc

Selected projects

Selected publications

• Trinh L., Parzuch A., Bienkowski K., Wróbel P., Pisarek M., Kaproń G., Solarska R.
  Prussian Blue Analogues-Derived ZnFe2O4 in CuO/ZnFe2O4 p-n Junction for H2 Production
  (2024) ACS Omega, 9 (43), pp. 43734 – 43742
  DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.4c06231
• Bienkowski K., Solarska R., Trinh L., Widera-Kalinowska J., Al-Anesi B., Liu M., Grandhi G.K., Vivo P., Oral B., Yılmaz B., Yıldırım R.
  Halide Perovskites for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting and CO2 Reduction: Challenges and Opportunities
  (2024) ACS Catalysis , 14 (9), pp. 6603 – 6622
  DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.3c06040
• Trinh L., Bienkowski K., Parzuch A., Wróbel P., Kaproń G., Pisarek M., Solarska R.
  Hofmann-type MOF-derived CuNiOx photocathode for effective PEC H2 production
  (2024) International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 87, pp. 1171 – 1179
  DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2024.09.033
• Wojciechowska N., Bienkowski K., Solarska R., Kalek M.
  Electrochemical Asymmetric Diacetoxylation of Styrenes Mediated by Chiral Iodoarene Catalyst**
  (2023) European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 26 (32), art. no. e202300477
  DOI: 10.1002/ejoc.202300477
• Pisarek M., Krawczyk M., Gurgul M., Zaraska L., Bieńkowski K., Hołdyński M., Solarska R.
  Plasma-Assisted N-Doped TiO2 Nanotube Array as an Active UV-vis Photoanode
  (2023) ACS Applied Nano Materials, 6 (12), pp. 10351 – 10364
  DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.3c01278
• Krajczewski J., Michałowska A., Čtvrtlík R., Nožka L., Tomáštík J., Václavek L., Turczyniak-Surdacka S., Bieńskowski K., Solarska R.
  The battle for the future of SERS – TiN vs Au thin films with the same morphology
  (2023) Applied Surface Science, 618, art. no. 156703
  DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2023.156703
• Wang H., Zhang H., Shan B., Solarska R., Li M.
  Symmetry-Breaking Effects of Near-Infrared II Thermoplasmonics of Gold-Silica-Cuprous Selenide Hybrid Nanoshells
  (2023) Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 127 (22), pp. 10757 – 10765
  DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.3c00921
• Chen M., Solarska R., Li M.
  Additional Important Considerations in Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Enhancement Factor Measurements
  (2023) Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 127 (5), pp. 2728 – 2734
  DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.2c08693
• Trinh L., Bienkowski K., Wróbel P., Pisarek M., Parzuch A., Nawaz N., Solarska R.
  New Concept for the Facile Fabrication of Core–Shell CuO@CuFe2O4 Photocathodes for PEC Application
  (2022) Materials, 15 (3), art. no. 1029
  DOI: 10.3390/ma15031029
• Bieńkowski K., Małolepszy A., Stobiński L., Strawski M., Wróbel P., Solarska R.
  Influence of Fermi-Level Engineering in Multi-Interface CuO/Cu2O||rGO||h-WO3||rGO|| Photoelectrodes on Photoelectrochemical CO2 Reduction
  (2022) Energy Technology, 10 (6), art. no. 2100999
  DOI: 10.1002/ente.202100999
• Kałek, M., Kraszewski, K., Tomczyk, I., Bieńkowski, K., Solarska, R.
  Mechanism of iodine(III)-promoted oxidative dearomatizing hydroxylation of phenols: evidence for radical-chain pathway
  (2020) Chem. Eur. J. (26), 11584-11592
  DOI: 10.1002/chem.202002026
• Jadwiszczak, M., Jakubow‐Piotrowska, K., Kedzierzawski, P., Bienkowski, K., & Augustynski, J.
  Highly efficient sunlight-driven seawater splitting in a photo-electrochemical cell with chlorine evolved at nanostructured WO3 photo-anode and hydrogen stored as hydride within metallic cathode
  (2019) Advanced Energy Materials, 10(3), 1903213
  DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201903213

Contact

Renata Solarska, PhD, DSc
e-mail: r.solarska@cent.uw.edu.pl
phone: +48 22 55 43711
room: 05.03